Greetings from New York and Sydney. Those older members will remember me from my time as a coach from 2006 until 2010. I mostly coached the juniors, U12 to U18. Those four years were probably the most enjoyable time of my life.
As some of you might remember I also set up The Dominic Watson fund for Stade Juniors, which ran for several years.
I enjoyed meeting many of you at Shebeen’s watching the Italy France match.

When I started with Stade in 2006 I was asked to consult and possibly suggest changes in the fitness and strength training problem. My subspecialty had been Paediatic sports medicine and I had also been a Paediatric Cardiologist. I had played Rugby and Tennis for Sydney University as well as other clubs. With this back ground I felt I had a good understanding of the physiology and training needs of athletes.

Also a good friend of mine , who ran a state of the art gym in Boston, had also recently been fitness consultant for the Boston Red Sox and the Boston Celtics. I spent a lot of time with him developing a fitness program for young athletes in my practise. From that association I had made a fitness web page for my medical clinic. This was oriented towards young athletes and I used this as a template to adapt and to propose a training program for Austrian Rugby.

This program was adopted into training programs for Austrian Rugby in 2006 and still forms the basis of many fitness programs in Austrian Rugby.

I retired from Medical practise in 2012 due to illness. I am convinced I survived because of my underlying fitness and decided to use my expertise to write an evidence based book on how to maximise your time on this planet.

I am grateful for Pascals kind persistence in keeping me involved and also to Renee who has also kept me interested in the whole of Rugby Austria.
With the help of Pascal and Alain I plan to attach these training programs and the book to be used as a resource. I am also looking into the idea of a camp for “older people” to be taught and trained for this way of living.

With thanks to all of you
David Watson